Rumbelle Guided Tours
by darcyfarrow
Summary: It's the year 2116 and a group of fans have arrived in Storybrooke for a customized tour of important historic sites-important, that is, to Rumbelle history.


STORYBROOKE, MAINE, 2116

" _He's going to be driving tour buses up and down Main Street," Gold, "In the Name of the Father"_

A young woman with long blonde hair approached the yellow bus as it came to a stop in the parking lot of Storybrooke Park. As the driver pulled the ancient doors open and the first passenger stepped down from the top step, the greeter reached out a hand to grasp his elbow, holding him steady as he came down to the ground. "Thanks, but no need, dearie," the passenger said. He indicated his gold-handled cane. "This is just a prop."

"Ah." The greeter withdrew her hand. "I never know for sure. Welcome to Storybrooke." She elevated her chin to make eye contact with each of the nineteen other passengers, who, she guessed, ranged in age from seven to seventy. All of them wore electronic sunglasses, with built-in cameras, phones and wi-fi connection; those were the signs of experienced tourists. The majority also wore costumes, some, as the greeter recognized, purchased from the Storybrooke Visitors Centre, but many handmade. The greeter liked those best, because the costumes, though varying in quality from barely-identifiable to cosplay-perfect, were made with love. These people knew their Storybrooke; they would have plenty of challenging questions. Her assessment was verified as four or five of the guests murmured in admiration as they reached out to finger the genuine leather of her red jacket. "Yes," she assured them, "it's real leather. We got special permission to make it." For in these days, animal products, including leather and meat, had been outlawed. "The cow it was made from had died of natural causes before the leather was extracted. And yes, it's an exact duplicate of Emma's, including the melted zipper on the left pocket. That zipper, I'm sure you'll all remember, was an early victim of Emma's magic lessons."

"Her elemental magic was amazing, right from the get-go," a blonde tourist in a brown faux-leather jacket informed her companions. The greeter smiled; she was seeing fewer and fewer Emma imitators these days—in fact, fewer and fewer of all the non-Rumbelle characters now that her employer, Mad Hatter Tourism, had decided to set up character-specific tours.

"Yeah, but she wouldn't have ever developed it if not for Regina," interjected a dark-haired woman in a black pencil skirt. Ah, a Mayor Regina fan.

"Good morning, good morning," she welcomed each individually, then when the twentieth had stepped down and the group of their own accord formed an orderly collection standing before her, she introduced herself. "My name is Karen Swan Short, and yes, I am a direct descendant of Emma Swan-Mills. My bloodline, in fact, is Mad Believer."

"Grace Hatter and Henry Mills," the Regina fan explained to her companions.

"On behalf of Mad Hatter Tourism, welcome to the one, the only Storybrooke." She swept her arms wide to indicate the town around her as the visitors applauded. "How many of you are here for the first time?"

Three hands—all belonging, it appeared, to the same family—shot up in the air.

"Well, welcome! I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time. As I show you around, feel free to ask questions, and you old-timers, feel free to add your own knowledge to the collective wisdom. I've been doing these tours for three years now and I've found there's always something new to learn about this amazing town and its original inhabitants.

"Now, this _is_ the Rumbelle Custom Tour—" she paused to allow the Rumbellers (the majority of her group, of course) to cheer. "You may wonder why an Emma guide is leading you. Well, I'm pleased to inform you that, this being a very special day in Rumbelle history—"

She was interrupted by a Gold cosplayer. "February 12!" Which led to another round of cheers, which made Karen grin; this would be a lively group, indeed, and they had a sunny, if chilly, day ahead of them. "Valenrum's Day!"

"Valen _belle_ 's Day," a Librarian Belle player corrected.

Karen laughed. "We Storybrookers call it 'Valengold's Day. We love _ail_ the members of the Gold Family equally. Now, since it is _the_ most important day for Rumbellers, we were inundated with bookings for the Rumbelle Tour, and we simply ran out of Golds, Rumples and Belles!" The crowd laughed too. "But, though I am an Emma expert, I'm also a Swanfire at heart, so I've made an in-depth study of the entire Gold Family, and I'm sure you won't be disappointed with my knowledge and enthusiasm." She reached into her jeans pocket for a baseball cap emblazoned with the official icon of the Swanfires, a white swan sailing on a sea of fire. As she set it on her head, several of the Gold, Rumple, Bae and Neal cosplayers in the group wiped away a tear. "Swanfire forever!" a Neal thrust his fist in the air, and other Gold Family players followed suit.

"Swanfire forever," Karen murmured, her hand over her heart. She'd taken some heat from the other Emmas at Mad Hatter for her choice, but she'd snapped back at them that without Swanfire there'd have been no Henry, and without Henry, there'd be no stories from Storybrooke. That usually shut the detractors up fast, even the Captain Swanners; the Swan Queeners seemed less threatened by the stories of Emma's first love.

After a moment of bent-head silence, Karen continued. She needed to get their energy back up again. "You've all seen the itinerary, I'm sure; we've allowed plenty of time for photos and questions at each of our stops. We've also set aside two hours at the end of the day for independent touring. If there's any place you'd like to visit that we don't get to today, just let me know and I'll send you there. We have a hologram-guided tour that you can download from our website. That's right, you can download a Hologram Rumple, Gold or Belle to describe the site you're visiting. And this evening, at The Sorcerer's Mansion, we have something very special planned: our Twenty-Fifth Annual Rumbelle Ball!" She paused for more cheers. "I hope you've polished up your dancing shoes, because this event has become Storybrooke's most romantic event of the year. So! Welcome to Storybrooke, and let's get started!"

She spun around, facing away from them, and spread her arms wide. "We begin with Storybrooke Hospital. Now, for Rumbellers, this part of the tour can be very emotional, especially the first two locations, but these are a necessary part of the tour, if you're going to get the full Rumbelle story. And I assure you, we'll quickly move on to much happier spots. So if everyone is ready," she spun back around, her hands raised, "Iet's go inside. Now, if this is your first visit to Storybrooke, this will be your first taste of magic. You'll feel a slight tingling and a warmth; it's really very nice. And then a sort of tug, as if a small child was pulling on your arm, and your eyes will blur for just a second. When your vision clears, we'll be inside." A bright white light emanated from her palms, spread out to engulf the tourists, surrounding them with a magical embrace. Some of the tourists blinked; others closed their eyes; but the more experienced of them watched with wide-eyed fascination, trying to touch the lines of magic with their fingers. The transportation went too quickly, however; in a blink they were set down gently at the head of long, dim corridor, to the left of a paint-cracked desk. On the desk were several antiques, large and small: pens, a clipboard, paper, a push-button telephone and a single red rose in a glass vase.

"We are in the basement of Storybrooke Hospital. For twenty-nine years, only five people even knew this basement existed. It wasn't on the custodians' floor plan, the electrician's schematics or even the emergency evacuation plan. Can anyone tell us why?"

"It was Regina's secret," answered a brunette in a blue lace dress and high heels. Her voice was as brittle as an icicle. "So she could hide Belle here, away from Rumple and away from Moe and away from, well, everyone."

"And why did Regina want Belle hidden away?"

A Gold answered, "As a bargaining chip she could use against Gold at some future point. Except she never did dare use it." He flashed his teeth threateningly. "She figured it out, that all hell would break loose once Gold found out what she was doing to Belle."

"And it did," a Rumple giggled. "The Wraith."

"There's another reason for this secret," Karen prompted.

"The curse," said Librarian Belle. "To preserve the curse. Because Belle still had her memories, and Regina was afraid that if Belle was out on the streets, telling people about the curse, Gold might believe her and the curse would start to unravel."

"It was destined to unravel anyway," the Emma player shrugged. "That's how it was written, for the savior to come and break it."

"Regina was going to hang onto her fantasy world for as long as she could, even though she got bored with it pretty quick," snorted a Neal lookalike. "What's the fun in tormenting people who aren't aware they're being tormented?"

"Yeah, but what about Henry? He was the spanner in the works." The Emma player had an Irish accent that didn't jibe with her costume, but that was okay; Mad Hatter drew customers from around the world. "The curse didn't account for him. He started breaking it long before the mandatory twenty-eight years had passed."

"Cracking it," a Gold corrected. "Not breaking it. You might say, the curse was chipped." She grinned wickedly and the other Rumbellers chuckled at the reference.

"Hey, is this a Rumbelle rose?" One of the newcomers poked at the rose in the vase, and three people answered in one voice: "No!" The only question this newcomer could have asked that would have elicited a stronger negation was _Who's Rumbelle_?

Karen folded her arms in satisfaction. Yes, this was going to be a lively tour, and an easy one for her.

She showed them the padded room that Sidney Glass, and before him, Jefferson Madden had occupied; barely interested, they simply peeked through the iron plate that covered the little window in the door. Then she led them, silently, to the other padded room, swung the door open and stood aside so they could enter. Enter they did, nervously, as if they could hear the historical echo of the door slamming shut; reverently, as if mesmerized by the faint, mote-filled beam of sunlight that edged in through the covered window that looked out on the hospital garden; hesitantly, as though with their very presence, they, interlopers from the Land Without Magic, might disturb the sheen of magic that lay over this town. They peered through the spy slot, they stared at the stains in the ceiling and the cracks in the walls (as Belle spent many long hours doing), but none of them dared to sit on the cot and none of them took photos. They walked in, breathed the dank air, squinted in the dim light, shuddered and wrapped their arms around themselves; some of them, including one of the Rumples, shamelessly cried.

Karen didn't say anything. There was a script for every site, and she knew some of the Rumple and Gold Guides followed it, in anger describing what Belle had suffered here, but most of the Belle Guides let the padded room speak for itself. Generally, anyone spending the 2000 credits for one of these custom tours already knew the details anyway, and there was something so powerful in standing in this room with a silent woman dressed as Avonlea Belle or Dark Castle Belle or Librarian Belle (none of the guides ever dressed as Asylum Belle; that was a company rule) that words would only violate the reverence. Karen recognized the power of silence and stood aside for it.

When the last guest had finished his inspection and everyone's eyes turned to her as a signal that they were ready to move on, she ushered them back to the nurse's station. "On now to Room 302." She could have transported them there, of course, but she'd learned that the guests needed a few minutes to collect their thoughts, so it was best to walk up the stairs, pass through the secret door, walk through the brightly lit and busy halls of the hospital—there was something reassuring about the light and the white uniforms and the smiling bustle of the still-active hospital. She put them on elevators and sent them up to the third floor. They were quiet on the ride up, most of them knowing the significance of Room 302.

Karen had them pause in the corridor: "This spot," she pointed to the floor, "was where Belle stood up to Zelena as Zelena and Rumple stormed in to take newborn Neal. What did Belle say when Zelena insisted that magic is more powerful than True Love?"

Karen always enjoyed this question, because it was always answered the same way: all the Belles in the r group speaking in unison. "'I refuse to believe that!'"

She escorted them into the never-used room (a century ago, a man named Dove gave the hospital administrators a very large donation with the stipulation that this room would be kept clean but would never be occupied again, and to this day, the request has been honored). As soon as they'd all settled in, all the Golds and Rumples made a beeline for the southwestern corner of the room, where they knelt and touched the wall and the floor. One of the Rumples reached into a knapsack and withdrew a Chip replica, setting it carefully on the linoleum; he and the others took photos of it before standing, arms folded, to think.

The rest of the group moved to the bed, where with their aid, Karen related the saga of Lacey, from her creation to her dissolution, thanks to the Blue Fairy's memory-restoring potion. "Quiz question: how many times did Belle break the cup? Careful: this is a trick question."

"Twice," a Belle answered, but another Belle corrected her. "No, once. In the Dark Castle. The second time, it was Lacey who broke it." Oh, these people knew their stuff, all right.

As Karen described Gold's many failed attempts to break the Lacey curse, the two Neals in the group shared a glance and a grunt. From the beginning Neal fans had resented Regina for this curse, which they felt, rightly, caused an unnecessary rift between Gold and Neal. Had Gold not had to spend so much time protecting Belle from Lacey's recklessness, he and Neal might have mended their fences a lot sooner and had more time together.

Like the Nealers, the Golds and Rumples had a clear, unified view of the Lacey curse, but the Belles were divided, most of them undecided as to whether Lacey had been a good thing for Belle, a revelation to Belle of her long-buried dark side. One of the group, a teen who wore the backless blue dress, remarked that Lacey was "Belle's strength," enabling her to rise above social convention and think for herself. An older woman, dressed as Adventurer Belle, snapped at that: "Someone here seems to have forgotten Belle's Motto, which predates Lacey by forty years."

"'Nobody decides my fate but me,'" Karen clarified, lest there be anyone in the group who hadn't heard the motto before. She had to step in before a fight developed. "Whether we're talking about Princess Belle, or Librarian Belle, or even Lacey, I think we all can agree, she was a remarkable woman."

"Indeed," said the Golds.

"And now, to lighten the mood," Karen gestured to the hallway, "on to Room 501: the Maternity Ward!"

This announcement brought smiles to all faces as the visitors hurriedly left Room 302 and its depressing memories behind. Fingers flew to the rims of eyeglasses so that photos could be snapped just as soon as Room 501, also a never-used facility (this time, by a donation from Rumplestiltskin) was entered. "Who can tell me what role this room played in Rumbelle history?"

Every hand shot up in the air. Most didn't wait to be called on; they spoke out. "The babies were born here!"

Karen nodded. "Colette Rose Gold in 2016, followed by Flora Fauna Gold in 2019 and Sean Henry Gold in 2021."

Now the chatter resumed, as some of the guests shared information about the three Gold children. One of the Rumples had even met a Gold grandchild, so instantly he became a celebrity for the day, even posing on the hospital bed for pictures.

From Room 501 they started back down, pausing outside Room 309, where Neal had been treated, briefly, after Emma had magically released his soul from his father's body. This room was occupied by a man with a broken leg, so the group just poked their heads in and said hello. The patient was familiar with these tours—in fact, his wife was a Regina Guide—so being stared at by twenty strangers didn't bother him. Besides, with modern medical equipment, he would be healed and sent home within the afternoon. He offered to pose for pictures, claiming to be a descendant of Little John, but no one was particularly interested.

"All right, all right, are you ready to move on?" Karen chuckled. "Because there's a lot to see."

"And because that's one of the lessons of Rumbelle: move on in hope," a Gold said.

"Very well then, gather in; I'm going to transport us to the well. And after that, Gold's cabin, then it's downtown, where we'll visit the Sheriff's Office and see the jail cell that Gold was locked in. You'll even meet Sheriff Andy Taylor. Then it'll be lunchtime. Granny's hamburger and pancake buffet is included in the price of your tour package."

The group eagerly drew forward, excited for their second dose of magic as well as the locations they were about to see. The Rumples particularly looked forward to standing at the well, where they would drop biodegradable vials of blue food-colored water down to the river below. Rumples liked to make a pilgrimage to this well, because they felt it was where Rumple truly reclaimed himself from his cursed persona (the Golds argued that the impeccable Mr. Gold always remained a part of Storybooke Rumple, while the Belles claimed it didn't matter: Beauty loved every version of her Beast).

The morning passed too quickly for everyone, even Karen. After lunch—served by imitation Rubys and Grannys—they popped over to Any Given Sundae for cones in Baeberry, Rumbellicious, French Gold and Rocky Rumple flavors. Their bellies stuffed, they strolled over to the Belle Gold Memorial Library, a very busy and modern facility that, everyone agreed, Belle would have been proud of. Her portrait in oils, painted by her daughter Colette, hung above the Reference Desk. A depository of books about magic, most of them from Rumple's private collection, was locked in a basement vault that they were allowed to see. There wasn't much else, really, left over from the old days, and that's how Belle would have wanted it: her goal had always been to have a cutting edge facility that would serve the educational, cultural and informational needs of all the town's citizens.

"Okay." On the sidewalk, Karen gathered them in again. "Now it's time to visit—well, most of us don't enjoy going there, but it's a vital part of Rumbelle history. We'll make our stay brief, because I know it's emotionally difficult. And afterwards we'll move on to someplace I know you'll all love to see."

Enveloping them in the soft cloud of her white magic, she carried them to a rural road on the edge of town, where the Welcome to Storybrooke sign stood and where a faded orange line had been spray-painted (and repainted, many times) into the asphalt. "This is the place," Karen paused to catch her breath, and like her, they all stared down at the orange line. "This is the place where Belle, furious and broken-hearted over what she perceived as her husband's betrayal and the sure sign that he would never overcome the Darkness in his soul, brought Rumple on December 15, 2014. 'Your true love is your power,' she told him. 'I once saw the man behind the beast. Now there's only the beast.'"

One of the Golds crossed backwards over the line. Karen permitted it: curses on that division had long since faded away. He stumbled as soon as his feet passed the orange barrier and he ended up on his knees, scrambling about to reach out; a Belle came to him, standing just inside the line, holding up a plastic dagger she'd bought in the Visitor's Centre. With the other Belles and Rumples and Golds looking on in overwhelming grief, and the Regina and the Emmas and the Neals watching in shock, the kneeling Gold and the dagger-carrying Belle reenacted the scene. The dialog was well known to them, thanks to Rose C. Gold's biography, _Belle Gold: My Gran_ , published ten years ago.

There was no applause when the actors finished their scene, only some soft sobs and gasps of dismay. Applause wouldn't have been appropriate. The Belles hugged each other, and some of them hugged the Golds or the Rumples, and Karen silently passed around a package of Kleenex. She gave them all the time they needed to work out their grief. Finally, one of the Neals pointed to a tree branch and exclaimed, "Look! There's a blue tie hanging from that tree."

"Mr. Gold's marker," Karen identified it. "The tailor, Sam Browning, places a fresh Armani tie up there every year, to symbolize Mr. Gold's marker. So he could find his way home again. I think you'll find that all of the citizens of Storybrooke, in spite of having busy, modern lives of their own, devote a little bit of their time each year toward keeping the original stories alive. You'll have a chance to meet Sam and many of the other residents tonight at the ball." She drew in a cleansing breath, then clapped her hands together. "Now, as promised, on to someplace I'm sure that will cheer you up. The Pink House!"

A chorus of voices corrected her: "Salmon! It's salmon!"

Laughing, she poofed them to the porch of a pink Victorian mansion set apart from all the neighboring houses. Here, the house caretaker took over, provided a detailed hour-long tour that began in the basement, where vials of potions, powders and books lined the walls, and a Saxony Wheel was set up with straw in its flyer orifice. Each tourist was given the opportunity to sit at wheel and give it go, though the caretaker did warn them that in all of history, only Rumplestiltskin, Cora and Flora Gold had ever succeeded in spinning straw into gold. To ease their disappointment, she gave them little snips of gold fiber for souvenirs.

From the basement they were taken to the kitchen, with its, for the time, surprisingly modern appliances ("Gold was a gourmet cook; his specialty was classic French cuisine. His daughters said cooking was a favorite family pastime between them and their dad. Belle and Sean preferred to play chess," the caretaker said. She provided them a booklet filled with Gold's recipes, including a pottage from the peasant days.)

They walked through rooms filled with a mishmash of antiques, some of them tagged with prices, all of them tagged with identifying notes in a small, narrow hand. The rooms were free of dust and some chronological order had been imposed on the artifacts (Belle's work, the caretaker explained; while she lived in this house she was always busy organizing and cleaning.) On the ground floors the rooms full of antiques were interspersed, with no rhyme or reason, with a well-lived-in living room with a TV, a stereo and stacks of CDs and DVDs; a library, with overstuffed chairs and lots of plants; and a crafts room with another spinning wheel, a loom, and easels bearing unfinished landscapes. The largest room on this floor was a study, its shelves lined with law books and its imposing mahogany desk bearing a cell phone, an open ledger, a rack of file folders, and a computer. There were only two chairs in this room; only Dove and Gold ever came in here, the caretaker explained.

The upstairs surprised the visitors, especially the Neals and Rumples. It was clearly the work of women, its six rooms brightly painted, airy and sunny. There were five bedrooms: an elegant master that looked out over the street, three bedrooms outfitted for teenagers, and a toy room/library that overlooked the garden. Family photos in frames decorated the walls and the dressers. "They seem so happy!" Every tour group who saw this floor made the same remark. "They were, but they had to work at it," the caretaker replied. "It took sacrifice sometimes, as it does for all families: you give up something selfish for the sake of your marriage and your children."

"He made a tremendous sacrifice," Karen nodded at a photo of a grinning Rumple giving a piggyback ride to a toddler. "And he never regretted it, so he said. Not too often, anyway. On the morning Colette Rose was born, he gave up the Darkness."

"He saw that it was the best way to protect her," the caretaker added. "So he and Regina, the Blue Fairy and the Savior, they concentrated their power and with it, broke the dagger, and that broke the Dark One's Curse forever."

"He thought he was giving up magic. Belle tried to talk him out of it. By then, she'd come to realize the darkness was an integral part of his being. But what they came to learn, after the darkness was gone, was that it wasn't Dark magic that had made him what he was; it was magic, pure and simple. And that's what was left after the darkness was driven from him."

"Light magic," a Rumple said. "He still had light magic. And Merlin appeared before him and asked him to take on the mantle of the New Sorcerer."

"With Regina as his apprentice," said the Regina fan. "As it was once, it was again." She clasped her hands to her chest. "A perfect ending."

"And so they lived happily ever after—more or less," Karen ended. "Thank you, Lisa. And now on to the place our visitors most often request to see, even the Hookers," she winked, safe in the knowledge there were no Captain Swanners in the group. "On to the shop!" She didn't have to say which shop. With a flash of her magic they'd arrived at the green-gray little shop with its red door and its electric light declaring the ownership of "Mr. Gold, Pawnbroker and Antiquities Dealer."

The place no longer fulfilled its original purpose, they learned from Simon Dove; oh, visitors could still buy trinkets there, but its primary function now was to serve as a museum. "They would have been pissed off by all this," he said, sweeping his hand about in a way that included even the tourists. "Belle and Rumple were forward-looking people, and very private. But in the 2090s, the local economy tanked and the City Council needed a sure way to make a quick buck. Well, lookiloos had been dropping in for ages, hoping to hang out with Henry or chitchat with Granny, so they decided to organize, create a tourist industry here. Belle had passed by then. Her kids tried to fight it, but in the end, Sean was convinced and he won over his sisters. So here we are. Folks like you have kept this town alive ever since." He proceeded then to show them the shop's true treasures, first and foremost, the memorabilia that the First Curse had brought over from Misthaven. Then he let them browse through case after glass case of more personal Gold Family artifacts:

1\. Rumple's date book from 2014; all of the entries, except for May 11, which was inscribed in huge letters "MARRY BELLE," were marked with either "apologize to Belle" or "SHAA." None of the fans could identify the abbreviation; Karen transcribed it for them: "Save the Heroes Arses Again."  
2\. Cora's spell book with "Rumplestiltskin" scrawled in the margin  
4\. Rumple's lab notes from his experiments for bottling True Love and the vial he finally caught it in  
5\. A replica of the scroll containing the instructions for the first curse  
6\. Replicas of the chipped cup and Rumple's dagger  
7\. Emma's cell phone, which she loaned to Gold as the latter lay dying of dark shade  
8\. The high heels Belle was wearing on her wedding day  
9\. The sand dollar from Neverland ("The hologram doesn't work any more, alas.")  
10\. A first-edition copy of _Her Handsome Hero_  
11\. Bae's baby blanket ("The original—you can still smell the memory-preserving potion Rumplestiltskin poured on it.")  
12\. The sketch of Bae ("For ages, no one knew who drew it. Some thought Milah had; she was a talented artist. But Colette Rose finally got her father to admit it was a self-portrait that Bae had drawn when he was fourteen.")  
13\. Neal's favorite lock pick, positioned along the pick his father had used to break into his New York apartment

"And now, the most precious Gold Family artifact of all," Karen announced. "Rose C. Gold, granddaughter of Colette Rose Gold."

The group applauded and snapped pictures as a tiny, elderly woman emerged from behind the workroom curtain. She threw a skeptical glance at Karen: "Not sure I like being called an 'artifact,' like I'm a dinosaur bone or something, but I _am_ Rose Colette Gold. Belle French and Rumplestiltskin were my great-grandparents. And as you may know, I've written their biographies." She nodded at Simon, who reached into a cabinet and brought out a box of tiny flash drives, smaller than a button. "My first, published ten years ago, was _Belle French Gold: My Gran_. The second took me five years to write, as it's a four-volume history of Rumplestiltskin. Buy either one and I'll sign a photo for you; buy both and you can have a private lunch with me tomorrow at Granny's."

Simon warmed up his credit recorder as some of the tourists stepped forward, their fingers poised; a touch of the recorder screen would access their bank accounts so they could charge their purchases. As the books and trinkets were paid for, Rose shared with them lyrics from the operetta she was writing, _Forever Dearie_. She curtsied as they applauded, then she settled onto a stool to sign photos.

Karen leaned against one of the counters, half-listening to stories she knew by heart as she watched her customers' faces. They were pleased with the entire day; everything they'd seen and heard had lived up to their expectations. Her online tip jar would be stuffed tonight. She might even get to dance at the ball with the cutest of the Mr. Golds. Tomorrow she'd go back to leading the Emma groups, but for today, she'd had a lot of fun with the Rumbellers. She couldn't imagine her day getting much better.

Until the workroom curtain jangled on its rings and slid aside. A man impeccably dressed in Armani emerged. On his left hand he wore a ring with a large moonstone. On his tie he wore a clip shaped like a rose. On his thin lips he wore a half-smile that counterbalanced his wrinkled skin and iron gray hair. Karen puzzled: this Gold imitator was good, the best she'd ever seen, almost identical to last known photos of the real man. But her puzzlement vanished when Rose exclaimed, "Great-grandfather!" and Simon gasped. "Mr. Gold!"

"Good afternoon, sweetie; love those new lyrics. Good afternoon, Mr. Dove," the new arrival kissed his great-granddaughter's cheek. "Just came by to examine the ledgers. Rent Day is tomorrow, you know."

Simon's mouth opened and closed. "Yeah, I know. But I—I can assure you, the books are up-to-date."

"I have every confidence they are." Still, the man picked up a heavy leather-bound book from the counter and tucked it under his arm. "Yet I rather miss the work, you see. The math keeps my mind sharp." For the sake of the tourists, he wiggled his fingers and tiny sparks flew off the fingertips. "I admire numbers. I've long been a student of sacred geometry."

"Yes, sir," was all Simon could squeak out.

"I thought he was dead," the Regina fan whispered to Karen. "He must be three hundred years old!"

"Four," a Rumple corrected.

The interloper paused on the threshold between the showroom and the workroom. He flashed an enigmatic grin over his shoulder. "I tend to lose track, myself. The price of immortality." He vanished in a yellow cloud of magic.

"Did you get that? Did you get his picture? Did you get any video?" the tourists peppered each other with questions. "Are you sure it was really him?"

And their fingers flew, typing messages across the invisible Internet: "BEST VACATION EVER."


End file.
